"I'm busy. I'vegot to go collect the money you've made for us."
"_You_ collect money? _I_ get in trouble and _you_ collect money?"
"I have to," his voice said with the impatient patience of one speakingto a small idiot child, "before you can have it. Listen here. Where youare, it's Wednesday. You're going over to Dunnsville today to fix somephones. You'll be in Mr. Broaddus' law office about half-past ten. Youlook out the window and notice a fella setting in a car in front of thebank. Notice him good!"
"I won't do it," said Sam defiantly. "I ain't taking any orders fromyou! Maybe you're me, but _I_ make money and _you_ collect it. For all Iknow you spend it before I get to it! I'm quitting this business rightnow. It's cost me my own true love and all _my_ life's happiness and tohell with you!"
"You won't do it?" his own voice asked nastily. "Wait and see!"
So, that morning, the manager told Sam, when he reported for work, todrive over to Dunnsville and check on some lines there. Sam balked. Hesaid there were much more important lines needing repair elsewhere. Themanager explained politely to Sam that Mr. Broaddus over in Dunnsvillehad been taken drunk at a Fourth of July party and fallen out of awindow. He'd broken his leg, so it was a Christian duty to make sure hehad a telephone in working order in his office, and Sam could get overthere right away or else.
On the way to Dunnsville, Sam morosely remembered that he'd known aboutMr. Broaddus' leg. He had told himself about it on the telephone.
At half-past ten, he was fixing Mr. Broaddus' telephone when heremembered about the man he was supposed to get a good look at, sittingin a car in front of the bank. He made an angry resolution not, underany circumstances, to glance outside of the lawyer's office. Hemeditated savagely that, by this resolution, the schemes of his otherself in the future were abolished.
Naturally, he presently went to the window and looked to see what he wasabolishing.
* * * * *
There was a car before the bank with a reddish-haired man sitting in it.A haze came out of the exhaust, showing that the motor was running. Noneof this impressed Sam as remarkable. But as he looked, two other mencame running out of the bank. One of them carried a bag and both of themhad revolvers out and they piled into the car and the reddish-haired mangunned it and it was abruptly a dwindling speck in a cloud of dust,getting out of town.
Three seconds later, old Mr. Bluford, president of the bank, came outyelling, and the cashier came after him, and it was a first-rate bankrobbery they were yelling about. The men in the get-away car haddeparted with thirty-five thousand dollars.
All of it had taken place so fast that Sam hardly realized what hadhappened when he went out to see what it was all about, and wasinstantly seized upon to do some work. The bankrobbers had shot out thetelephone cable out of town with a shotgun, so word couldn't get aheadof them. Sam was needed to re-establish communications with the outsideworld.
He did, absorbedly reflecting on the details of the robbery as he'dheard them. He was high up on a telephone pole and the sheriff andenthusiastic citizens were streaking past in cars to make his laborsunnecessary, when the personal aspect of all this affair hit him.
"Migawd!" gasped Sam, shocked. "That me in the middle of next week toldme to come over here and watch a bank robbery! But he didn't let on whatwas going to happen so's I could stop it!" He felt an incredulousindignation come over him. "I woulda been a hero!" he said resentfully."Rosie woulda admired me! _That other me is a born crook!_"
Then he realized the facts. The other him was himself, only a week and ahalf distant. The other him was so far sunk in dastardliness that hepermitted a crime to take place, feeling no more than sardonicamusement.
And there was nothing he himself could do about it! He couldn't eventell the authorities about this depraved character! They wouldn'tbelieve him unless he could get his other self on the telephone to admithis criminality. Even then, what could they do?
Sam felt what little zest had been left in living go trickling out ofhis climbers. He looked into the future and saw nothing desirable in it.
He painstakingly finished the repair of the shot-out telephone line, butthen he went down to his truck and drove over to Rosie's house.
There was but one thing he could do.
* * * * *
Rosie came suspiciously to the the door.
"I come to tell you good-by, Rosie," said Sam. "I just found out I'm acriminal, so I aim to go and commit my crimes far away from my home andthe friends who never thought I'd turn out this way. Good-by, Rosie."
"Sam!" said Rosie. "What's happened now?"
He told her about the bank robbery and how his own self--in the weekafter next--had known it was going to happen, and told Sam to go watchit without giving him information by which it could have been stopped.
"He knew it after it happened," said Sam bitterly, "and he could've toldme about it before! He didn't, so he's a accessory to the crime. And heis me, which makes me a accessory, too. Good-by, Rosie, my own truelove! You'll never see me again!"
"You set right down here," Rosie ordered firmly. "You haven't done athing yet, so it's that other you who's a criminal. You haven't got athing to run away for!"
"But I'm going to have! I'm doomed to be a criminal! It's that me in theweek after next! There's nothing to be done!"
"Says who? _I'm_ going to do something!"
"Like what?" asked Sam.
"I'm going to reform you," said Rosie, "before you start!"
* * * * *
She was a determined girl, that Rosie. She marched inside and put on herblue jeans, then went to her father's woodshed where he kept his toolsand got a monkey wrench and stuck it in her hip pocket.
When she came to the truck, Sam said, "What's the idea, Rosie?"
"I'm riding around with you," replied Rosie, with a grim air. "You won'tdo anything criminal with me on hand! And if that other you startstalking to you on the telephone, I'm going to climb that pole and tellhim where he gets off!"
"If anybody could keep me from turning criminal," acknowledged Sam,"it'd be you, Rosie. But that monkey wrench--what's it for?"
Rosie climbed into the seat beside him.
"You start having criminal ideas," she told him, "and you'll find out!Now you go on about your business and I and the monkey wrench will lookafter your morals!"
This tender exchange happened only an hour or so after the robbery andthere was plenty of excitement around. But Sam went soberly about hiswork as telephone lineman. Rosie simply rode with him as a--well, itwasn't as a bodyguard, but a sort of M.P. escort--Morals Police. Wherehe worked on a line, he called the central office to report, and heheard about the hunt for the bank robbers, and told Rosie.
* * * * *
It was good fortune that he'd been in Dunnsville when the robberyhappened, because his prompt repair of the phone wires had spoiled therobbers' get-away plans. They hadn't gone ten miles from Dunnsvillebefore somebody fired a load of buckshot at them as their car roared byLemons' Store. They were past before they realized they'd been shot at.But the buckshot had punctured the radiator, and two miles on, they werestuck.
They pushed their car off the road behind some bushes and struck out onfoot, and the sheriff ran right past their car without seeing it. Thenrain began to fall and the bank robbers were wet and scared anddesperate. They knew there'd be roadblocks set up everywhere and theyhad that bag of money--part bills, but a lot of it silver--and all ofTidewater was up in arms.
Taking evasive action, they hastily stuffed their pockets with smallbills--there were no big ones--but dared not take too much lest thepockets bulge. They hid the major part of their loot in a hollow tree.They separated, going to nearby towns--while rain fell heavily andcovered their trails--and went to bed with chest colds. They feltmiserable. But the rain washed away the scent they had left andbloodhounds couldn't do a thing.
None of this was know
n to Sam, of course. Rosie had taken charge of himand she kept charge. She rode with him all the afternoon of the robbery.When quitting time came, he took her home and prepared to retire fromthe scene.
But she said grimly, "Oh, no, you don't! You're staying right here!You're going to sleep in my brother's room, and my pa is going to put apadlock on the door so you don't go roaming off to call up thatno-account other you and get in more trouble!"
"I might mess things up if I don't talk to him," Sam objected.
"He's messed things up enough by talking to you! The idea of repeatingour private affairs! He hadn't ought to know them! And I'm not sure,"she said ominously, "that you didn't tell him! If you did, Sam Yoder--"
Sam didn't argue that point, for there was no argument to make. He waspractically meek until he discovered after supper that the schedule forthe evening was a game of cribbage played in the living room whereRosie's mother and father were.
He mentioned unhappily to Rosie that they were acting like old marriedpeople without the fun of getting that way, but he said that only once.Rosie glared at him. And when bedtime came, she shooed him into herbrother's room and her father padlocked him in.
He did not sleep well.
* * * * *
Next morning, there was Rosie in her blue jeans with a monkey wrench inher pocket, ready to go riding with him. She did. And the next day. Andthe next. Nothing happened. The state banking association put up fivethousand dollars reward for the bank robbers and the insurance companyput up some more, but there wasn't a trace of the criminals.
There wasn't a trace of criminality about Sam, either. Rosie rode withhim, but they exchanged not one single hand-squeeze, nor one meltingglance, nor did they even play footsie while they were eating lunch inthe truck outside a filling station. Their conduct was exemplary and itwore on Sam. Possibly it wore on Rosie, too.
One day Sam said morosely, as he chewed on a ham sandwich at lunch,"Rosie, I'm crazy about you, but this feels like I been divorced withoutever even getting married first."
And Rosie snapped, "If I told you how I feel, that other you in the weekafter next would laugh his fool head off. So shut up!"
Things were bad, and they got no better. For nearly a week, Rosie rodeeverywhere with Sam in his truck. They acted in a manner which Rosie'sparents would in theory have approved, but didn't even begin to believein. They did nothing the world could not have watched without theirbeing embarrassed, and they said very little that all the world wouldnot have been bored to hear.
It must have been the eleventh of July when they almost snapped at eachother and Rosie said bitterly, "Let me drive a while. I need to put mymind on something that it don't make me mad to think about!"
"Go ahead," Sam invited gloomily. He stopped the truck and got out thedoor. "I don't look for any happiness in this world any more, anyway."
He went around to the other side of the truck while she slid to thedriver's seat.
"Tomorrow's going to be the twelfth," she said. "Do you realize that?"
"I hadn't given it much thought," admitted Sam, "but what's thedifference?"
"That's the day where the other you was when he called you up the firsttime."
"That's right," said Sam morbidly. "It is."
"And so far," added Rosie, jamming her foot viciously down on theaccelerator, "I've kept you honest. If you change into a scoundrelbetween now and tomorrow--"
She changed to second gear. The truck jerked and bounced.
"Hey!" cried Sam. "Watch your driving!"
"Don't you tell me how to drive!"
"But if I get killed before tomorrow--"
* * * * *
Rosie changed gear again, but too soon. The truck bucked, and she jammeddown the accelerator again, and it almost leaped off the road.
"If you get killed before tomorrow," raged Rosie, "it'll serve youright! I've been thinking and thinking and thinking. And even if I stopyou from being a crook, there'll always be that--other you--knowingeverything we say and do." She was hitting forty miles an hour andspeeding up. "So there'd still be no use. No hope, anyway."
She sobbed, partly in fury and partly in grief. And the roadway curvedsharply just about there and she swung the truck crazily around it--andthere was a car standing only halfway off the road.
Sam grabbed for the steering wheel, but there wasn't time. The lighthalf-truck, still accelerating, hit the parked car with the noise ofdozens of empty oil-drums falling downstairs. The truck slued around,bounced back, and then it charged forward and slammed into the parkedcar a second time. Then it stalled.
Somebody yelled at Sam. He got out of the truck, looking at the damageand trying to figure out how it was that neither he nor Rosie had beenkilled, and trying worriedly to think how he was going to explain to thetelephone company that he'd let Rosie drive.
The voice yelled louder. Right at the edge of the woodland, there was areddish-haired character screaming at him and tugging at his hip pocket.The words he used were not fit for Rosie's shell-like ears--even if theyprobably came near matching the way she felt. The reddish-haired mansaid more nasty words at the top of his voice. His hand came out of hiship pocket with something glittering in it.
Sam was swinging when the glitter began and he connected before the gunfired. There was a sort of squashy, smacking sound and thereddish-haired man lay down quietly in the road.
"Migawd!" said Sam blankly. "This was the fella in front of the bank!He's one of those robbers!"
He stared. There was a loud crashing in the brushwood. The accident hadhappened at the edge of some woodland, and Sam did not need a high I.Q.to know that the friends of the red-haired man must be on the way.
A second later, he saw them. Rosie was just getting out of the car then.She was very pale and there wasn't time to tell her to get started up ifpossible and away from there.
One of the two running men was carrying a canvas bag with the words BANKOF DUNNSVILLE on it.
* * * * *
The men came at Sam, meanwhile expressing opinions of the state ofthings, of Sam, of the Cosmos--of everything but the weather--in termseven more reprehensible than the first man had used.
They saw the reddish-haired man lying on the ground. One of them--he'dcome out into the road behind the truck and was running towardSam--jerked out a pistol. He was about to use it on Sam at a range ofsomething like six feet when there was a peculiar noise behind him. Itwas a sort of hollow _klunk_ which, even at such a time, needed to haveattention paid to it. He jerked his head around to see.
The _klunk_ had been made by Rosie's monkey wrench, falling imperativelyon the head of the second man to come out of the woods. She had carriedit to use on Sam, but she used it instead on a total stranger. He felldown and lay peacefully still.
Then Sam swung a second time, at the second man to draw a pistol on him.
Then there was only the sweet singing of birds among the trees and thewhirrings and other insect-noises of creatures in the grass andbrushwood.
Presently there were other noises, but they were made by Rosie. Shewept, hanging onto Sam.
He unwound her arms from around his neck and thoughtfully went to theback of the truck and got out some phone wire and his pliers. Hefastened the three strangers' hands together behind them, and then theirfeet, and he piled them in the back of the light truck, along with themoney they had stolen.
They came to, one by one, and Sam explained severely that they mustwatch their language in the presence of a lady. The three were so dazed,though, by what had befallen them that the warning wasn't reallynecessary.
Rosie's parents would have been pleased at how completely proper theirbehavior was, while they took the three bank robbers into town andturned them over to the sheriff.
That night, Rosie sat out on the porch with Sam and they discussed theparticular event of the day in some detail. But Rosie was stillconcerned about the other Sam. So Sam decided to
assert himself.
About half-past nine, he said firmly, "Well, Rosie, I guess I'd betterbe getting along home. I've got to try one more time to call myself upon the telephone and tell me to mind my own business."
"Says who?" demanded Rosie. "You're staying locked up right here tonightand I'm riding with you tomorrow. If I kept you honest this far, I cankeep it up till sundown tomorrow! Then maybe it'll stick!"
Sam protested, but Rosie was adamant--not only about keeping him frombeing a crook, but from having any fun to justify his virtue.
* * * * *
She shooed him into her brother's room and her father locked him in. AndSam did not sleep very well, because it looked as though virtue wasn'teven its own reward.
He sat up, brooding. It must have been close to dawn when the obvioushit him. Then he gazed blankly at the wall and said, "Migawd! O'course!"
He grinned, all by himself, practically from head to foot. And atbreakfast, he hummed contentedly as he stuffed himself with pancakes andsyrup, and Rosie's depressed expression changed to a baffled alarm.
He smiled tenderly upon her when she came doggedly out to the truck,wearing her blue